Personality Test.

For horses... ;)

I'm a big believer in looking in a horse's eyes. I think that you can see so much in their eyes and see what kind of personality they have, and before I ever mount, I check out those eyes, and so far, they haven't let me down.

Red has very large, doe-like eyes, he only has two small wrinkles above them, and every so often, he gets a silly expression and the whites of his eyes show. Red isn't a trouble-maker, but he does do silly things every now and then, like picking up my brush and tossing it towards me or grabbing the halters from the hooks and putting them on another one. You can typically tell when Red's about to get into something just by looking at his expression.

Here is his typical expression, which proves that he is normally a very calm, level-headed horse. He's trustworthy and only spooks if he has a good reason to, and normally, he's pretty lazy.

Soft eyes, big, brown, typically in a lazy, half-closed/half-opened position.

 This is his mischievous expression..

There are those whites! (This was before he opened the gate to get food...)

And this is my favorite, his expression every time he's in the mood to cuddle.

 

 Lastly, his "I want to run" expression that is normally reserved for when he see's a goat or cow...he always looks back at me after I cue him like "You ready?"

 

 Recently, I also heard about doing a personality test with the whorls-or swirls-on their foreheads, which I'm surprised that I had never heard of before. I love doing the T-Touch with the horses, which normally starts off with their whorls and going to their back area depending on what the horse needs. I'm planning on doing a post on T-Touch later on because it's totally amazing and I love it, haha!

Anyways, I saw this post on HorseNation.com and thought it was neat. :) Here's a part from their article.

"These whorls are most commonly found on the head, the face in particular. The whorls found on other body parts are typically referred to as trichoglyphs or “cowlicks.” The theories surrounding whorls and how they dictate personality characteristics in horses have been talked about and studied for thousands of years. There are countless theories out there, which is why I am not about to stamp my name next to one particular claim. Instead, I want to provide some ideas about the various whorls and see whether or not these theories line up with our own horses personalities!

After some research, I have found that most of the studies tend to favor these explanations regarding the positioning of the whorl on a horses face:

1)      A whorl positioned right above the eyes represents the most common whorl and tends to result in an even-tempered and uncomplicated creature.
2)      Whorls below the eyes usually results in a horse with a higher IQ. In other words, this below-the-eye whorl horse might be a trickster who likes to plan his or her escape out of their stall in the morning. They are inquisitive and can be sneaky.
3)      Whorls on the left of the face could suggest a complicated but trustworthy horse.
4)      Whorls on the right can indicate an obstinate personality.
5)       Horses with one long whorl tend to be people-friendly.
6)      Double whorl horses can have multiple personalities. They tend to be more complicated and difficult to read at first glance.
7)      Three or more whorls are extremely rare and suggest unpredictability… so watch out!"

So, here's a photo that shows Red's whorl.

 As you can see, his whorl is in the center, maybe just a touch higher than his eyelid, so he would fall under #1, an even and uncomplicated creature, which is actually really accurate for Red. :)

For sake of time, I won't go into them deeply, but Halfpint is a #5, so he is people-friendly, also accurate, Spirit is a #3, meaning he is a complicated but trustworthy horse, also pretty accurate and Cowboy is a #2, and he is definitely a trickster, haha!


I'd love to know what category your horse falls under!